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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Conductance enlargement in picoscale electroburnt graphene nanojunctions
AU - Sadeghi, Hatef
AU - Mol, Jan A.
AU - Lau, Chit Siong
AU - Briggs, G. Andrew D.
AU - Warner, Jamie
AU - Lambert, Colin J.
PY - 2015/3/3
Y1 - 2015/3/3
N2 - Provided the electrical properties of electroburnt graphene junctions can be understood and controlled, they have the potential to underpin the development of a wide range of future sub-10-nm electrical devices. We examine both theoretically and experimentally the electrical conductance of electroburnt graphene junctions at the last stages of nanogap formation. We account for the appearance of a counterintuitive increase in electrical conductance just before the gap forms. This is a manifestation of room-temperature quantum interference and arises from a combination of the semimetallic band structure of graphene and a cross-over from electrodes with multiple-path connectivity to single-path connectivity just before breaking. Therefore, our results suggest that conductance enlargement before junction rupture is a signal of the formation of electroburnt junctions, with a picoscale current path formed from a single sp2 bond.
AB - Provided the electrical properties of electroburnt graphene junctions can be understood and controlled, they have the potential to underpin the development of a wide range of future sub-10-nm electrical devices. We examine both theoretically and experimentally the electrical conductance of electroburnt graphene junctions at the last stages of nanogap formation. We account for the appearance of a counterintuitive increase in electrical conductance just before the gap forms. This is a manifestation of room-temperature quantum interference and arises from a combination of the semimetallic band structure of graphene and a cross-over from electrodes with multiple-path connectivity to single-path connectivity just before breaking. Therefore, our results suggest that conductance enlargement before junction rupture is a signal of the formation of electroburnt junctions, with a picoscale current path formed from a single sp2 bond.
KW - electroburning
KW - graphene
KW - quantum interference
KW - nanoelectronics
KW - picoelectronics
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1418632112
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1418632112
M3 - Journal article
VL - 112
SP - 2658
EP - 2663
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 9
M1 - 201418632
ER -